


Relapse

by skulls_and_stripes



Series: What Time Is It Right Now? [3]
Category: BoJack Horseman
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Everybody Lives, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23786752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/skulls_and_stripes
Summary: During a game of Uno with Herb and Hollyhock, BoJack gets up to get a glass of water.
Relationships: BoJack Horseman/Herb Kazzaz
Series: What Time Is It Right Now? [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803790
Comments: 4
Kudos: 71
Collections: Ollywoo AUs





	Relapse

It’s _clearly_ a blue nine, and blue nines do _not_ go on top of yellow sixes.

“The hell do you think you’re doing?” he asks, with disproportionate aggression.

Herb blinks. “What?”

“That’s a nine and the card below it’s a six, you son of a bitch.”

“Hmm?” He removes his card from the pile to inspect the one below. “Yeah, you’re right. God dammit.” He picks a card from the draw pile. “Your turn.”

“Hang on! You should get penalty cards. You tried to cheat!”

“I just misread the card,” says Herb defensively. “Come on, let’s get on with the game.”

“Of course _you_ would say that,” snarls BoJack. “Dirty cheat.”

“Hey, I just misread the card. Stop accusing me of cheating.”

BoJack throws up his hands in frustration. “Oh, so _I’m_ accusing _you_ of cheating now?!”

Hollyhock, with a sigh, waves a hand to her forehead. “Can you two _please_ not? Just for ten minutes?”

“Ugh, whatever,” snaps BoJack. He slaps a yellow two card onto the pile and stands up, leaning on the chair for support. “I’m gonna go grab myself a glass of water.”

As Hollyhock starts looking through her cards to decide which one to place down, Herb watches with a frown as BoJack walks off to the kitchen. He’s noticeably stumbling, leaning against the wall as he goes to retain some sense of stability. His speech wasn’t slurred at all, but the question still lingers in Herb’s mind.

_Did he relapse?_

* * *

Horses don’t naturally vomit.

There are muscles around their esophagus that prevent the action. This muscle exists in most if not all mammals, of course, as a safety measure; it opens in order to let food pass through, and then closes in order to prevent it from coming back up. The problem is that horses, as well as many rodents, are simply better at this task then most mammals. A horse will not vomit from a regular run-of-the-mill illness, or from eating a food that disagrees with them; if a horse vomits, the most likely culprits are drugs, a comically large amount of cotton candy combined with news that his favourite friend is dating his least favourite friend, or being shitfaced drunk at lunchtime, in which case it is almost invariably somehow Sharona’s fault.

“Or maybe it’s, uh, maybe it’s Scutterbotch,” he slurred, attempting to hit the flush button on the toilet he just rather politely gifted his breakfast to and instead very nearly knocking a hole in a nearby window. “Eh. Who knows why I’m like this? Maybe I’m just born broken.”

Herb winced. “Don’t say that.”

“‘S true, though.” He groaned. “God. I don’t want eleven-year-old Sarah Lynn to see me like this.”

Normally, this would be the part where Herb would say something like, “It’ll be okay,” or “You’re great at pretending to be not shitfaced, I’m sure if you take five minutes to get yourself together then she won’t notice a thing” or “I could probably negotiate to get you the rest of the day off to sober up”. Instead, weeks of this hellish routine had left him impatient with the whole thing, and he clicked his tongue and said, “Why? She’s seen you like this before.”

“I’m failing her.” It came out as a sort of slurred croak, and at this point he was getting too drunk for Herb to tell what was genuine vulnerability and what was a self-deprecating joke. “After that whole thing last year, where I had to take the fall for Sharona when Sarah got into her vodka. I promised myself I’d stop drinking.”

“So did she, and she’s still bringing alcohol to work every day. Which you’re stealing from her. Consistently. Which is kind of bad, by the way.” He frowned. “How does this keep happening? She’s a human woman and you’re a twelve-hundred-pound horse. There is no _way_ you’re consistently drinking enough to get shitfaced by lunchtime and still leaving her some.”

BoJack wilted under his stare. “Maybe some of it’s mine…”

“Oh my God.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “BJ. Do you have any _idea_ what this is doing to your liver?”

“Pfft, you should see what it does to m’ _brain.”_ He attempted to walk toward the cubicle door, almost cracked his head open as he stumbled toward a wall, and just managed to break his fall with his arms. 

“Exactly! You can barely walk. How are you going to finish today’s episode like this?”

“I, I -- That’s not what I meant.” He frowned. “I don’t like being sober. Makes me think.”

“BJ, don’t.” He leaned against the wall, sighing. “You know, it’d be unhealthy if you were drinking this much all the time just for no reason, but I guess this isn’t so bad. Since, you know, you’re just celebrating.”

BoJack tilted his head. “Celebrating.”

“Well, yeah. People drink at parties, and you’re only drinking at this massive pity party you’re _constantly_ throwing yourself.” He rubbed his temples anxiously. “I get it. Your parents were shitheads and you drink to cope. I _know,_ okay?” He sighed. “Sometimes I feel like you’re really trying to convince me, you know? _‘Oh, Herb, help me, I feel so bad about myself and I can’t stop drinking’._ I believe you, okay, BJ? But I can’t solve your problems for you.”

“‘Course you can’t,” BoJack slurred. “Nobody can fix me. I was born broken.”

“No, you weren’t. Nobody is _born_ broken -- and nobody _becomes_ broken either, really.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “People don’t _work_ like that. And yeah, you’re being kinda shitty and stealing Sharona’s vodka, and you’re _definitely_ an alcoholic, but that’s not the end of the world. And -- Listen, BJ. I’m always gonna be here for you if you need me, and I _want_ to help you. But I can’t fix you. Because you’re not broken. So, you need to stop using that as an excuse.”

BoJack gulped. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Yeah, you do. _Get help._ I’ll talk the execs into getting you time off, I’ll re-write the scripts so we can do a few episodes without you, I’ll drive you down to Malibu to sober up and come visit you and send you letters and whatever you need, but you’ve gotta get help.” He places a hand on his shoulder. “You _can’t_ keep doing this.”

It was all a very well choreographed routine by this point. Herb had just delivered a motivational speech, and now it was BoJack’s turn to insist that he was _fine,_ that he didn’t need _help,_ that he couldn’t _possibly_ expect Herb to go to all that effort for a stupid piece of shit like him. “That would mess up the shooting schedule,” he slurred.

“And you having to go home early every other day because you’re shitfaced _isn’t_ messing up the schedule? Like I said, I can re-write some of the episodes so you don’t need to do so much filming.” He places a hand on his shoulder. “I _can’t_ let you keep working on this show if you’re gonna be drinking like this.”

“Get off me. If anyone sees us like this we’re both screwed. The execs already know you’re gay.”

“We’re in a goddamned bathroom cubicle, who’s gonna see us? Everyone probably already knows by now and they’re just not saying anything. Come _on,_ BJ. You gotta get help.”

“...I’m scared.”

Herb frowned, tilting his head to one side. This wasn’t part of the routine. “Scared of _what?”_

“...I’m scared that I’ll go there and do all the sobering shit and tick all the boxes and none of it will _work._ I’m scared that one day someone’s gonna have to tell me that they can’t help me, because I’m just _broken,_ and --”

“Have you _ever_ talked to, like, _anyone? Nobody_ who isn’t an asshole says that, and if someone working at rehab turned a client away like that they’d get fired. Besides, you’re _not_ broken.”

BoJack was silent for a long time. 

“...Yeah. Okay.”

Herb opened his mouth to continue persuading him, closed it, and stared at him with wide eyes. “Wait, seriously?”

BoJack paused, as though he was about to reveal that what he just said was a joke. “Can you actually get me time off to detox?”

“Yeah, of course, babe. I mean, you threatened to walk so they wouldn’t fire me when I got outed. I kind of owe you.”

“I only did that because _I_ owed _you,_ dummy.” He attempted to playfully punch him in the shoulder and instead bruised his knuckles on a nearby wall. 

Herb’s frown deepened. “I’ve been telling you to get help for _months,_ and _now_ you’ve decided to listen? What changed?”

“I dunno,” he slurred. He seemed to almost smile a little, which was a rare sight. BoJack grinned triumphantly, and he smirked at his own immature jokes, but he didn’t _smile._ “You -- you care about me.’

“...And?”

“I dunno. Doesn’t happen often.”

* * *

He watches cautiously as BoJack continues to stumble toward the kitchen. _Was_ he slurring? He was sure he wasn’t, but his clearly inebriated walking pattern is making him doubt himself. It’s not like he hasn’t relapsed before. He’s getting better and better, and the days when Mr. Peanutbutter’s annual Halloween party that was inexplicably hosted at their house would be enough to send him over the edge were long past, but it’s still necessary to keep alcohol away from him to avoid triggering those insatiable cravings.

Proximity to alcohol isn’t the only thing that makes him prone to relapsing, Herb thinks to himself as he places a card down. Stressful events can be just as triggering. He’s at least _mentioned_ being desperate for a drink every time in recent memory he’s been forced to interact with his parents. The ending of _Horsin’ Around_ had him shitfaced for a whole day before he sobered up enough to realise he was meant to be past that, at which point he almost immediately spiraled into self-loathing and shame.

Those were all short-lived relapses, though. Glug glug, sitcom-style drunken adventures, falling over himself to apologise for being such a burden, self-loathing, and eventually things would go back to something resembling normality. It was exceptionally rare for something to come along that would send him back to square one entirely, necessitating a trip back to Pastiches. Such a thing had happened exactly once.

* * *

The novel written by the (in)famous Butterscotch Horseman was a truly horrific one. It consisted almost entirely of _incredibly_ long sentences, seriously, _really_ long sentences, sentences that truly challenged preconceived notions of where a period had to be placed and how long a sentence could be before it must logically become its own paragraph that could be separated into different sentences of a more manageable size. It was still closer to a comprehensible autobiography than the several embedded videos, twenty pages of erotic _Doctor Who_ fanfiction, five different theories on how 9/11 happened, and the soup recipe that Herb stared at.

This is _exactly_ what he expected would happen when Todd, BoJack, and Sarah Lynn tried to write a book together.

The ringing phone was a welcome change from the monotonous silence as he read on with morbid curiosity, and he hurriedly answered. “BJ, are you okay?!”

“...What day is it?” asked BoJack blankly.

“...Tuesday,” answered Herb. “Where the hell are you?! You didn’t pick up the phone for ages, I was scared I’d have to report you missing --”

“No, I was just asleep. And, uh, I just woke up, face-down in a _Walmart_ parking lot.” He groaned. “What did I do while I was high?”

“What _didn’t_ you do?” He sighed. “This has gotten out of hand.”

“Yeah,” croaked BoJack in response. “I know.” 

“I know that this has been stressful for you,” said Herb, very carefully. “I’m stressed too. And I mean, I _might_ be okay. The chemo’s working so far.”

“I know, I just -- _God,_ I’m so scared.” His voice broke as he talked. “You know, Herb, you’re the only person I’ve ever been able to _believe_ when you say you won’t abandon me. Everyone else always says they won’t leave, but -- but then they _do,_ and I know everyone’s gonna get sick of me eventually, but with you, I feel like you’re gonna keep putting up with me. I don’t want to lose that.”

“I don’t want you to lose that. But it’s not up to me.” He took a deep breath before saying what needed to be said. “You know, BJ, if this _does_ kill me, then I don’t want to spend my last couple months with you being drunk all the time.”

“I know.” He audibly gulped. “I think this has gone too far for me to stop by myself, but -- I’m scared. What if I leave for six weeks to sober up and by the time I get back you’re --”

“That’s _incredibly_ unlikely. Besides, on the off chance that I do go downhill -- and I almost definitely won’t -- they’ll call you so you can visit me.” He sighed. “I’m gonna come pick you up.”

“No, don’t, you’re -- you’re sick. I can get a cab.” There’s a pause. “Shit, do you know where my credit card is?”

“Uh, it’s not on the bench,” answers Herb, quickly scanning the bench. “I can check upstairs if you --”

“Wait, never mind, it was sticky-taped to the inside of my sleeve. I’m gonna go call a cab.”

* * *

Hollyhock groans in boredom. “Hey, BoJack, are you done yet?”

BoJack’s out of sight now, but his uneven walking can still be heard. “Just skip my turn,” he calls back. “And I’ll, I dunno, put down a whole bunch of cards when I’m back.”

So, he’s definitely not slurring. That rules out an alcoholic relapse. Such a thing was highly unlikely anyway; he would never neglect to tell Herb about such a thing, and besides, how would he even _get_ alcohol? There’s none in the house, Hollyhock’s too young to have any, and he hasn’t left the house without at least a brief explanation of why lately, at least as far as Herb can remember.

...Then again, if there’s any period in BoJack’s life stressful enough to justify him relapsing, any period in Herb’s life causing him enough anger to justify him not noticing the scent of alcohol, it would be now.

* * *

“So… Yeah.” Todd fidgeted with a loose string on the couch that he only recently moved out of, avoiding eye contact. “We did a DNA test and … yeah. Hollyhock’s your daughter.”

“That’s _impossible,”_ BoJack said automatically. “I mean, Herb and I are almost at our twenty-fifth anniversary, and there’s no _way_ that kid’s twenty-five.”

“She’s seventeen, actually,” says Todd. “Gee, I didn’t realise you’d been together for that long.”

Herb frowned. “So does that mean…”

“She _can’t_ be my daughter,” insisted BoJack. “There must be some mistake.”

“We got a DNA test, BoJack. You’re related. Face it, she’s yours.” He stood up awkwardly. “I’m, uh -- I’m gonna let you two sort this out. Call me if you need anything.” He made a swift exit, leaving room only for the rising tension in the air.

“...Woah,” said Herb. 

BoJack was already defensive. “Hey, I’m just as confused about this as you are.”

“Are you sure?” said Herb dejectedly, narrowing his eyes. “Because, I mean, you’ve got a kid that would have been conceived _right_ around the turn of the millenium, and we were together then, and it kinda seems like…”

“Herb, no.”

“It’s not like I’m going to divorce you over it,” he says hurriedly. “I mean, I’m upset, but it was only once and it would have been eighteen years ago, so…” His eyes widen. “It _was_ only once, right?”

“It wasn’t _once,_ it was never, but I’m _really_ appreciating how you’re assuming good faith here.”

Herb looked hurt. “BJ, you’ve got a daughter. It’s not exactly like there’s another explanation here.”

“I don’t know. Let’s try and figure it out. I’ll go back to the DNA place with Hollyhock tomorrow, double-check it, maybe --”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know, nobody! Jesus, Herb, why the hell don’t you trust me?”

“Why don’t _you_ trust _me?”_ His frown deepened. “I already said, I’m not going to leave you over something that happened eighteen years ago, but you’ve gotta be honest with me here. I mean, that girl, she wants to know who her mom is --”

“Well, I don’t know who her mom is because I’m _not_ her dad.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, I already _know_ because you have a _daughter._ Cat’s out of the bag now, BJ.” His eyes widened. “Wait, was it Princess Carolyn?”

“What? No! She’s just my agent.” He frowned. “Herb, I’m telling you, I _never_ cheated on you. I swear on my father’s grave.”

“You once got kicked out of a cemetery for trying to piss on your father’s grave.”

“Bad example, I swear on my grandfather’s grave.”

“He was also kind of a dick.”

“Whatever. I _didn’t_ cheat.”

Herb was silent for a long time.

“...You know, you’re gonna have to tell me eventually.”

BoJack said nothing.

* * *

Okay, maybe saying that this is stressful enough to trigger a relapse is being a _little_ too generous. It’s just the consequences of his own actions catching up to him, after all. And all of this fighting could have been avoided if he’d just come clean about who it was from the start. Tell Hollyhock who her mom is and she’d be off to meet her, Herb would take a few weeks to process it all and then forgive him, and all of this would be over. But no, now they _have_ to drag this fight out for goddamned months.

He places down a skip card, making no changes to the mental count in his head of how many turns BoJack’s missed. Hollyhock tilts her head. “Are you skipping me or BoJack?”

“BJ. It’s your turn.”

She places down a card, and Herb places down his, listening eagerly for any signs of BoJack’s return. He’s taking _forever,_ for some stupid reason, but he’s not drunk, so there’s no excuse. Maybe he’s sleep deprived? No, that’s unlikely, he’s been sleeping the usual amount. Besides, there’s no way _this_ is stressful enough to have him stumbling around from sleep deprivation.

It’s not like nothing similar has ever happened before.

* * *

He stormed into the house that they shared, with BoJack nervously following him. “...Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” said Herb stiffly. “Why? Do _you_ want to talk about it?”

“No,” answered BoJack. “But you seem angry, so I thought maybe you wanted to --”

“What’s there to talk about?” Herb practically snarled. “I mean, basically nothing happened.”

“Yeah, exactly, basically nothing happened, so I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal out of --”

“All that _happened,”_ continued Herb viciously. “Was that you went to a party in 2003, which is the year that it is right now, and Joelle Clarke was there, and you walked up to her, and said, ‘Woah, Joelle, you look _amazing!’,_ and that was _all_ that happened.”

“Herb --”

“And _then,_ you nudged me in the ribs and said, ‘Hey, Herb, check out Joelle, she has lost _so_ much weight!’ And I said, ‘BJ, I don’t want to talk about her body’, and you said, ‘But seriously, how do you think she did it?’”

“And I realise now that talking about how hot she is right in front of you probably came across the long way, and I’m sorry for that, but I _don’t_ like her.”

Herb raised an eyebrow. “Then why would you _say_ that? Who says that about a woman they _don’t_ like?”

“I didn’t mean it like _that.”_

“Then how did you mean it?”

BoJack stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, that’s _fabulous,_ because neither do I! So let’s continue _not_ talking about it.” He groaned. _“Why_ would you say that?”

“I meant it in, like, a friendly way. Joelle and I are friends. We have a lot in common --”

“Like _what?_ The show?”

“The show,” confirmed BoJack. “We’re both bi, too, so that’s something to talk about. And, uh… Other stuff.”

 _“Other stuff,”_ repeated Herb, narrowing his eyes.

There was a long, painful silence.

“...Do you want to talk about it?” asks BoJack. “Because it kinda feels like you want to talk about it.”

* * *

BoJack, suffice to say, wasn’t _actually_ cheating on him with Joelle, and the whole thing turned out to be a hilarious misunderstanding. Well, not necessarily _hilarious._ It was the sort of thing that was hilarious when you explained it to a neutral third party, who would laugh politely in between the obligatory expressions of concern, but was also quite traumatic for everyone involved to actually go through.

There’s a noise from the kitchen that sounds suspiciously like glass breaking. Herb frowns. “Hey, BJ, you okay in there?”

“Y-Yeah,” answers BoJack hurriedly. “Just dropped a glass.” He forced a laugh. “Clumsy old me, huh? This is _just_ like the time I _accidentally_ pushed Sarah Lynn’s stepdad down a flight of stairs. Repeatedly.”

“That was _not_ accidental.” He narrows his eyes. “Did you cut yourself?”

“No. Well, only a little. I’ll just sprinkle some sugar on a lemon and it’ll be good.” He laughs at his own joke. “Get it? ‘Cause it looks like the lobotomy --”

“How the _hell_ did you cut your head while pouring yourself a glass of water?”

“Clumsy old me, hey?”

Herb sighs, realising it’s his turn. He puts down a card, his mind still dwelling on the memory of the fight after the party with Joelle. He _was_ kind of leaping to conclusions, now that he thinks about it. Maybe _that’s_ what BoJack meant when they had that fight last week.

* * *

Hollyhock cleared her throat loudly. “Hey guys, how about tomorrow morning, we all get up early and eat breakfast together?”

“Sorry, can’t,” said BoJack dismissively. “I don’t even know what breakfast _is_ anymore. I’ve been staying up till three in the goddamned morning arranging all our pennies by year and seeing how fast I can flip through the channels, so my sleep schedule is all over the place, but I haven’t changed my eating schedule to match, so I’ve basically given up on breakfast.”

“Oh,” said Hollyhock, slightly dejected. “What about lunch? Or dinner?”

“I can’t, I have to … count my teeth.”

Herb frowned. “BJ--”

“Oh, _shut_ up, Herb.” He stood up, suddenly furious. “Sue me for not wanting to sit all polite with you and act like everything’s fine, okay? You’re being an asshole.”

 _“I’m_ being an asshole?” choked Herb. “Jesus, at least I didn’t cheat on you and refuse to admit it!”

“I _never_ cheated!” insisted BoJack, voice rising to a shout. “Why do you _always_ assume I’m cheating on you?”

“You have a daughter!”

“No, not just now. _Before_ now. You _always_ leap to the _worst_ possible conclusion! How do _I_ know that _you_ haven’t cheated on _me,_ huh?”

“Because I _wouldn’t_ do that!”

“And _I_ would?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, you’ve got a _kid,_ BJ.” He groaned. “Just _tell_ me who it was.”

“Of course you would _assume_ I’m cheating on you,” BoJack practically snarled. “You _do_ know that’s a stereotype, right?”

“Stereotype of _what?”_ asked Herb, his voice perhaps a little deceivingly innocent. “Of people who have kids that aren’t yours?”  
  
“Of bisexuals, actually,” says BoJack viciously. “And _don’t_ act like you didn’t already know that.”

“I swear to God -- _don’t_ try to make this about how I’m somehow biphobic when I’m literally _married_ to a bisexual person! I don’t think you cheated on me because you’re bi, I think you cheated on me because you _have a daughter.”_

There was a long, painful silence.

“That said,” began Herb.

“Oh, here we go…”

“You’re not _exactly_ debunking that stereotype.”

“Oh my God.” He took a large gulp of his coffee. “You know what? I’m gonna go throw some matches into the pool.” He turned to leave, then paused. _“Nobody_ touch my coffee.”

* * *

There’s a loud _thud_ from the bathroom.

“Holy shit,” says Herb. “The hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” answers Hollyhock, standing up. She eagerly walks down to the bathroom, Herb right behind her. For a second after entering, he can’t see what’s going on -- Hollyhock’s body is frozen in shock and covering most of his vision, and he’s too short to see over her shoulder. It’s not until she moves to get closer to BoJack that he sees it, and becomes frozen in shock himself.

BoJack is lying on the bathroom floor, his mane disheveled and the fur on his head tinted red with the blood slowly pouring from a cut right above his left eye, his jacket falling off one shoulder, his limbs spread out across the ground and his mouth hanging blankly open.

“...Shit,” breathes Herb, trying to slow his frantic breathing. He turns to Hollyhock, who’s now kneeling over him. “Is he … ?”

“He has a pulse, but --” She frantically shakes his shoulders, desperate for a response. “He’s out cold. I think you’d better call an ambulance.”

Herb dials 911 with shaking fingers and manages to hold himself together long enough to explain the situation. The responder instructs him on the basics of first aid -- checking his airways, moving him to the recovery position, slowing the bleeding in his head -- and tells him that the ambulance is on the way.

The second he hangs up from the call, he can’t hold back the tears. 

Hollyhock places a hand on his shoulder, the other pressing on BoJack’s head wound to stop the bleeding. “Hey, it’s okay. He’s gonna be okay.”

Herb says nothing.

* * *

“The _best_ thing about New Years,” said BoJack, lying back on the couch and re-watching the final _Horsin’ Around_ Christmas episode. “Is that you get to say stuff like, ‘I haven’t gone to therapy since last year’.”

Herb stuck his tongue out to help him focus as he added the finishing touches to the icing. “Yeah, that’s always fun.”

“I haven’t slept since _last year,_ I haven’t washed the dishes since _last year,_ I haven’t showered since _last year,_ I haven’t eaten since _last year --”_

“It’s January second.” He took out his phone to check the time, and accidentally dropped it because he was focusing on the cake. Luckily, because it was 2004, the phone was a Nokia, and so instead of breaking it simply cracked a large hole in the bench it fell onto. “And it’s seven PM. You _definitely_ should have done all of those things by now, most of them multiple times.”

BoJack sighed in defeat. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m gonna go shower, then wash the dishes, then sleep.”

“Not until you’ve eaten this cake, you’re not,” snapped Herb. “I did _not_ spend three hours making your birthday cake for you to go and not eat it.”

“Two hours,” snapped back BoJack. “The time when it’s baking doesn’t count.”

“I had to check regularly to see how it was going! You just don’t appreciate the _art_ of baking.”

“Oh my God, you are _intolerable.”_

“Love you too, BJ.” He started cutting the cake into pieces. “God dammit, I spent _so_ long on this icing and now I’ve just smudged it with the knife.”

“What the hell did you think was gonna happen? It’s meant to be eaten, Herb, don’t decorate it like it’s going in the goddamned trophy cabinet.” He stood up, walking into the kitchen to stare at the cake. “Oh, wow, that is kinda impressive.” His eyes eagerly fed on the perfectly clear and only slightly wobbly stripes of colour, forming an almost perfect rainbow. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

Herb blushed. “My, uh, my mom taught me.”

BoJack smirked. “I’m guessing by that you mean, your mom taught you how to ice stuff in general, and then when she kicked you out you taught yourself how to do perfect gay pride flags out of spite?”

“Pretty much. And it’s not _perfect --_ see, look, you can tell I went too high up right there.” He pointed to a spot on the cake. BoJack, without hesitation, poked the spot, leaving his finger covered in red and orange icing, which he smeared onto Herb’s nose.

“Looks pretty perfect now.”

“Oh my God, you are _intolerable.”_

He smirked. “Love you too, Herb.”

* * *

“Found these in the cupboard,” she explains, placing the container on the table. “Do you think it’s what he OD’d on?”

Herb struggles to focus his vision enough to read the container. “Y-Yeah,” he answers shakily. “I mean, it _is_ amphetamines, and I don’t know what else it could have been…”

“It was right next to the coffee.” She frowns. “You don’t drink coffee, do you?”

“No.” 

“He was always really _weird_ about not letting any of us touch it, and the one time I tasted it when you guys weren’t looking it tasted _super_ weird, so…” She gulps. “Yeah. I guess that’s how he was taking them.”

Herb buries his face in his hands, swallowing back a sob. “How did I not see this?”

“I don’t know. You were fighting, you barely talked to each other except to tear each other’s throats out.” Her frown deepens. “I don’t _get_ it, though. Who drugs their _own_ coffee?”

“BJ, obviously.”

“Yeah, but _why?”_ She stares at the container. “Do you have _any_ idea why he might have done this?”

* * *

He wasn’t sure what triggered it. It could have been any number of things -- the putrid smell, the retching noises, the pure anxiety of _knowing_ that something must be horribly wrong and not knowing _what_ it could possibly be -- but whatever it was, he swallowed it down. He felt _sure_ he was going to be sick on the spot, and the room did spin with nausea, but that was all that came of it.

He did come close, though, because humans do vomit naturally, from any number of causes -- mundane viruses, food cooked at _slightly_ the wrong temperature, and sheer anxiety in some cases could cause them to vomit. Horses, however, do _not_ vomit naturally, which is why the first thing he said was, “Shit, what’s wrong?”

BoJack jumped and hurriedly turned away from the toilet, wiping his mouth in a futile attempt to hide what he’d been doing. “Oh! Herb, you’re home early.”

“What’s wrong?” Herb repeated, narrowing his eyes. “You were throwing up. Are you okay?”

“It’s -- It’s really nothing,” BoJack insisted, flushing the toilet as though destroying the evidence will make the problem go away. “Don’t worry about it, it’s just --”

“BJ.” He placed a gentle but firm hand on his shoulder. “Are you sick?”

BoJack gulped. “No.”

“Then -- you’re not drunk, are you? I mean, you don’t _seem_ drunk, but --”

“Still sober.” His voice was blank and hollow by this point, like he was just waiting for the conversation to be over. 

“Then… ?”

“I’ll explain. Let’s, uh -- let’s go sit down.” He dejectedly walked down to the living room, head low like he’d been caught committing a crime, and Herb had no choice but to follow. BoJack sat down and remained silent for a long time.

“BJ, talk to me.”

“...I’m sorry,” said BoJack uselessly.

“What are you sorry for?”

“I don’t know. Just generally … _being?”_ Before Herb could protest, he added, “Also I ate all the ice cream.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad, but -- wait, _all_ the ice cream?”

“Yeah, I know.” He sounded like he was listing off items on a list, almost -- but with that self-deprecating edge that made it hard to tell whether he was actually _angry_ with himself or just trying to sound like he was because he expected Herb to be angry. “I ate _all_ the ice cream because I have _no_ self-control and then I made myself throw up so I wouldn’t get fat, okay?”

“...No, _not_ okay.” He frowned. “You _do_ know that’s unhealthy?”

“I mean, _yeah_ . But, well, it’s not a _big deal --”_

“It _sounds_ like a big deal. People don’t say ‘it’s not a big deal’ about things that actually _aren’t_ a big deal.”

“Yeah, well…” Whatever comeback he might have had dissolved in his mouth. He leaned back on the couch, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do, Herb.”

“...Uh, _not_ that?”

He gulped. “I don’t know how to stop.”

Herb’s eyes widened. “Jesus, BJ, how long have you been --”

“I don’t even _know_ anymore.”

Herb stared at him silently for a few moments, then pulled him into a hug. He didn’t know what else to do.

* * *

“...I don’t know,” he finally answers. It’s not entirely true. “He does have a bit of a history of … this sort of thing. I guess all the fighting made him…”

“Relapse?” suggests Hollyhock.

“Yeah, that.” He takes a deep breath. “This is all my fault.”

“...I wouldn’t say that,” says Hollyhock. “I mean, I’m the one that came here and made you fight, maybe it’s my fault. Or maybe his for cheating on you in the first place…”

“Oh, if we’re going to be throwing the blame around, can we just quit feeling sorry for ourselves and blame his mother? She was _horrible_ to him growing up, and it led to, well…”

“Druggins his own coffee?”

“Yeah.” His eyes widen. “Wait. Who’s Henrietta?”

Hollyhock blinks. “Uh, what?”

“BoJack’s mom. She has dementia, she thinks BJ’s some girl called Henrietta. Who’s Henrietta?” He stands up. “Oh my God, I just thought of something.”

“What are you --”

“I’ll explain the car. We’re going to the hospital to see if BJ can take visitors yet, and once he’s out of there, we’re finding your mom.” After a pause, he adds, “Oh, and Hollyhock?”

“...Yeah?”

“Either I’m dead wrong, or you’re my _favourite_ sister-in-law."

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact for anyone who cares: since this fic is pretty much entirely from herb's POV, and the first line is about how his card shouldn't actually be going down, bojack was probably right about him trying to cheat


End file.
